My wife got X-Files Season Set 5 for her Birthday this past Tuesday (6/4), and we went to play it a few days later (6/8).
Discs 2-6 work great. Disc 1 does **not**. It gets to the FBI warnings, and shows them just fine, but can't get beyond them. At this point they lock up, and do different things based on the player they are in.
I have a Panasonic A-120 in the living room, and at the lockup point the drive makes a grinding sound and the player won't acknowledge commands from the remote at all. A power-off or stop command on the player console will be acknowledged after a couple of minutes filled with the grinding noise of the drive trying to access the disc.
I have a DVD-ROM drive on my main PC. It has a variety of soft-players on it, and all do the same approximate thing: get to the lockup point and then self-stop, as if I had pressed the "stop" button myself. No messages or indicators come up.
Finally, the bedroom has a Mintek 2110 player. The disc gets to the lockup point, and then self-stops with a "Disc Error" message on the screen.
On all three, after a stop has occurred I can hit the choice for playing chapter 1, and the disc will start up with the proper program, recaping the previous season and showing a helicopter flying over snowy mountains.
I can then choose the "menu" and get to the proper main menu all right, and then choose anything I want to from there. But even thought the work-around is available, it's not satisfactory long-term, because I won't remember that this disc requires that work-around. I'd like it to work properly!
Cleaning the disc doesn't help anything. Cleaning the players doesn't help either, for that matter.
Other discs work fine in each unit, both before and after trying Season 5, Disc 1. No permanent damage *appears* to occur to any player, even with the grinding noise.
It looks like an exchange is needed here. However, this was a gift from out-of-state, and the receipt wasn't sent with it. Rather than trying to get a receipt and hope that it's a national chain, I was hoping to call the same toll-free # I called for Cleopatra (1-888-223-2369), and just get a replacement shipped to me.
Well, I'm informed that this defect hasn't been reported before. And because of that, the procedure is that I am supposed to send them (Fox) the defective set (the entire set!), at my own expense, and then wait approximately 6-8 weeks after their receipt of the bad item for a replacement package to arrive.
I don't really want to ask my wife to wait over 2 months to enjoy her birthday present. And I don't want to hassle a relative who might feel funny about sending receipts to us for a gift, if I can avoid it (there's a good chance it was bought from a store local to them in any case, which doesn't have a Memphis location).
All I'd really like is to mail you Disc 1 and have a working replacement sent back to me. I'm not the only one with this defect, as "markc" reported it originally in this thread, but never posted what his resolution was, if any.
I *even* tried dropping Peter Staddon's name with the young lady at Fox's consumer line ( ), but she had no idea who he was! So I am trying this route.
If anyone at Fox reading this can possibly help me, feel free to contact me directly. Thank you very much!

I don't know about the States, but here in Canada, I find that many of the larger chains will exchange product without a receipt if the exchange involves a defective product.
Just go to your local big box store, say you have a defective disc but unfortunately you've lost the receipt.
I'll bet they will exchange the product, no problem....and if not, just say thank you and that you'll deal with the company directly....
.....and then try somebody else...
It's worked for me.

Dave, I'm more than positive Media Play will take it back no problem without a receipt. Just explain what happens and they should let you get a new set. It's happened to me a few times and I've ended up doing that.